


Shift

by sinfuldesire_archivist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-12
Updated: 2008-11-12
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:12:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfuldesire_archivist/pseuds/sinfuldesire_archivist
Summary: Sam overhears something one night, and has a realization. It's up to him to save his older brother, not just the other way around...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at [Sinful-Desire.org](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sinful_Desire). To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Sinful Desire collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sinfuldesire/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** My first Supernatural -story, please read warnings, as it's a bit dark...

Shift, ch. 1

 

Sam always heard he was a smart boy. Dean, dad, his teachers - they all said so. So when he’s laying in bed at age 13, and the sounds he hears suddenly finds their explanation in his mind, he thinks he should’ve known sooner. He should’ve understood a long time ago, years before. He’s normally quick on the uptake, reads situations, reads people. This though, he suspects he’s ignored on purpose. 

 

There’s nothing special about this night, no reason why tonight is first time the pieces of the puzzle are drawn together to form such an awful picture. It’s all happened before, in the exact same way, nothing but the room they’re in has changed. Dad comes home from a hunt, starts drinking. He doesn’t clean up, doesn’t shower or tend to his wounds. Not until it’s later and the alcohol has taken the edge of, as he puts it. 

 

Sam never knows what to do around his dad while he’s drinking. Talking seems wrong, turning on the TV also. Dean fusses around their father, keeping the beers coming and making word-like sounds of comfort. Other than that it’s an eerie silence in their dingy motel-room, Sam thinks it’s what waiting for the monster on a hunt must feel like. After a while, an hour, maybe two, Sam is told to clean up and go to bed. Dean gives the short message, but Sam is sure his Dad gives an invisible sign instructing his older brother to do so. Sam hates being told to go to bed like he’s six years old, but on these uncomfortable nights he doesn’t complain. His brother always looks relieved when he nods and goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Dean’s eyes are on him as he crawls under the covers, turns over on his stomach and tries to sleep. He usually can’t though, not until the brother he’s used to sharing a bed with joins him.

 

Sometimes he hears Dad asking his brother if they should start dealing with his injuries, sometimes he lies awake when Dean agrees and he hears the sound of Dean finding the first-aid kit. Sometimes he doesn’t hear the sound of the tin-case they keep the bandages in, but he still hears the sound of the bathroom door and the lock turning. Then he hears pained sighs, shushing noises, maybe the sound of someone bumping into the bath tub or the soft sound of the shower curtains moving. 

 

They are familiar sounds, right sounds for the situation he pictures in his head. 

 

Tonight though, Sam finally hears. Sam can feel the sickening, heavy feeling of wrong when he realizes what’s off with the sounds he’s sp used to hearing. It’s Dean making the shushed, pained sounds. They’re cleaning Dad wounds, why is it Deans sighing and over-controlled breathing he hears? Why is Dad making the soothing sounds?

 

And then, with the rhythmic thumping sound of something hitting the edge of the bath tub, the gruesome picture is branded into Sam’s mind. And he remembers glimpses from all the evenings they’ve had just like this one over the last years.

 

He remembers his brother coming into bed with him, when he can feel the tension radiating from his brother for what seems like hours before Dean relaxes, throws an arm around Sam and finally sleeps. 

 

He remembers the surprise over Dean suddenly doing the laundry, not commanding Sam to do it, not even bitching about it.

 

He remembers being jealous of Dean’s special time with Dad. Tears gather behind Sam’s closed eyelids when he remembers being pissed with his brother the first time Dad asked Sam to clean his wounds instead. Dean made a big scene and insisted that he should do it like he always did, it was “no task for a snotty 10-year old“. Sam remember sticking his tongue out at his brother and slamming the door to the bathroom. His Dad has asked him to do it more than once since, Dean always throws a fit and Dad relents. Sam stopped arguing with his brother after the first time - Dean hadn’t talked to him for three days afterwards and it just wasn’t worth it, he figured. His big brother was the coolest guy he knew, after all. 

 

Sam wants to throw up when he thinks about the one time he saw his big, strong brother with tears in his eyes. Sam made a stupid joke about Dean’s stained jeans, laughing at the image of Dean sitting down on a pack of ketchup. The tears scared Sam into silence as Dean changed and went to the Laundromat down the street. When he came back, hours later, Dean was as drunk as a 15-year old could get on stolen beer. Dean held him tight that night, like he did when Sam had his nightmares.

 

At 13, Sam learns about one more demon that walks the Earth. And for the first time, he realizes it’s his task to save his big brother -not the other way around.


	2. Chapter 2

Shift, ch. 2/?

 

In the days and weeks after Sam’s realization nothing really changes. He expects it to, wakes up every morning thinking that this is the day where he’ll see that everything’s different. As the days go by, though, with hunting, driving for hours on end and a string of cheap motels, it’s just their normal abnormal life. Sam catches himself thinking that maybe it was all just a figment of his dark imagination. God knows he’s already seen so many nightmares come to life, maybe this one was an actual bad dream…?

 

No. He can’t do that. Can’t look the other way, turn his back on his brother and pretend everything’s ok. He knows he’s naïve and childish, wanting to close his eyes and wish it all away. He can’t be that whining, selfish kid anymore. He has to be the one that defends his older brother, who protects him from his living nightmare. Being the youngest brother - the one who prefers books to real life, studying to hunting - he feels overwhelmed by the task. ~

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

He tries to not dwell too much on the effects the abuse must have on Dean. His cocky, charming, brave, caring and overprotective brother. The thoughts of how alone he must feel keeping this secret, how torn between being the good son and wanting to run away -those thoughts that makes Sam feel a darkness he knows is the last part of his innocence lost forever. Sam knows about Dean’s desperate need to protect his younger brother from the horrors of their world, and sees now, the lengths to which he‘s gone to achieve it. During the quiet hours in the car, Sam can’t stop himself remembering more and more nights where he’d been left on his own for various reasons. He feels sick thinking about the pain he has, unintentionally, inflicted on his older brother. His hero. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It scares Sam that something so dark is hidden in the background of his already messed up life. And it scares him that he has to talk to his brother about this, actually put his realization into words. Sam knows Dean will deny it, probably be mad at him, accuse him of making up stories. The best reaction he can hope for is just having his brother make fun of him and change the subject. The worst, he doesn’t even want to consider. Doesn’t want to acknowledge the possibility that the conversation might lead to him losing his brother. Losing his love. Sam knows he needs it too much, in a way he never needed his dad‘s affection. The moments when he sees the love in Dean’s eyes, the times he shows it by touching him, comforting him. It‘s his motivation for most of the things he does, even picking fights with him is a way to test if he has his brother‘s love. He fears and knows that however the conversation will go, it will change their relationship forever. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The awfulness doesn’t happen again though, not in the two and a half weeks it takes Sam to gather his courage to talk to Dean. Again, there’s nothing special about that night, why Sam feels it’s the right night to finally vocalize what he knows.

 

Dean is exiting the bathroom after taking a shower, Sam’s pretending to read a book, leaning against the headboard of their bed. Sam’s noticing, as he has many times before, that his brother’s grown in the last year. He‘s no longer skinny, like Sam is. Instead of too-long arms and visible ribs, there’s a toned, muscled torso. For a second, Sam finds himself thinking “couldn’t he just fight him off?”, before he curses at himself for having such stupid thoughts. 

 

“Dude, what are you staring at?” his brother asks, towel in his hand.

 

“Dean, I… I know.” 

 

His brother’s eyes widen, but he says nothing, waiting for Sam to start making sense. 

 

“I heard you, in the bathroom that night, after the hunt…and I know. What he does…”

 

“You don’t know shit Sam, shut up.” Dean’s dropped the towel on the floor and is putting on his t-shirt and flannel with angry motions. He’s using his no -nonsense voice, that normally makes Sam back off immediately. 

 

“No, Dean, shutting up won’t change anything, I can’t pretend not to know…we need to do something!”. Sam feels tears starting to wet his cheeks, the lump in his throat hindering more words from coming out.

 

Dean looks at him, obviously taking note of the tears, and Sam knows his brother well enough to know that he’s fighting his instinct to comfort him. Instead, he looks him straight in the eyes and continues in a too-controlled voice.

 

“Sammy, it’s not what you think, seriously, you’re messed up. Just shut the fuck up, ok?” 

 

His words are supposed to be calming, comforting, but in Sam’s ears they’re just desperate. 

 

Sam can see the panic in his older brother’s eyes, and he knows this is where Dean will end the discussion by leaving.

 

A minute later, not another word said, Sam’s sitting on the bed by himself, listening to the echo of the door slamming. The lump in his throat is impossible to ignore any longer and he starts crying for real, loud sobs making his body shake.


End file.
